


This Woman's Work

by onewomanshow



Series: i wanna love you forever [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, False Pregnancy, Grief/Mourning, Grieving, Married Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Married Life, Medical Trauma, Mentions of Blood, Miscarriage, Mourning, Multi, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29928585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewomanshow/pseuds/onewomanshow
Summary: When it happens, the only person she wants is Zuko, but he's not there.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: i wanna love you forever [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195664
Comments: 2
Kudos: 58





	This Woman's Work

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: Read the tags.

Katara isn’t sure what’s happening. All she knows that her stomach is cramping, but it’s much, much too soon for her to be going into labor, only finding out she was pregnant two months ago, and that whatever this is…it’s not her period.

She manages to get up and rush to the bathroom, but even after furiously grabbing tissues to stifle the bleeding, the blood does not stop trickling out, staining the tiled floor.

She calls out Zuko’s name reflexively. He was always there for during her darkest moments so naturally, he’s the person that she wants right now. She doesn’t even remember that he left a few days prior to visit the Sun Warriors. It doesn’t click in until the guards, not Zuko, have stormed into the room and find her in the bathroom sitting in shock.

They hurry out, horrified expressions on their faces, and soon after, Dr. Han and his assistant is there.

They pick her up because she’s too frozen to move and transport her to the infirmary on a cot. She can faintly hear them order the staff to clean and disinfect the bathroom. Then, all she sees is bright, white lights and for a moment, she feels at peace.

_Miscarriage._

That’s what they tell her when she wakes up.

12 weeks.

Just before the safety net threshold.

After months of trying, trying so much that sex almost became a chore (the pressure to perform becoming overwhelming), and false positives, her womb rejected the embryo that was growing inside her.

If only it held on a little bit longer.

They ask her if she wants them to send a message to the Fire Lord and as she much as she wants him there with her so she can begin processing this experience because alone, all she feels is numb and empty but together, they could make sense of it, she says no – knowing how important this trip was to him.

The Sun Warriors thought that the egg he and Aang discovered all those years ago was ready to hatch.

The Banished, Dishonored Prince turned Fire Lord was about to become the sole master of the last dragon.

She couldn’t take him away from that joy.

Azula, understanding the severity of the situation, doesn’t even hesitate to watch Emi, telling her in layman’s terms that her mother was sick, so she was going to spend the 48 hours left until her father returns with her.

Emi makes her a card and tells her to get well soon. If she suspects something more, she doesn’t show it. A sensitive little thing like her father, she could always tell when someone is upset, or something is wrong.

As much as Katara wants to cry, she doesn’t.

The staff trickle in and out around her, trying to get the stain out of the pure white sheets and the red cover that doesn’t even begin to hide the deep, dark, distinct hue of blood.

They try to get her to eat, offering her favorites, even Water Tribe food. They so rarely have Water Tribe food, reserving it for special occasions like her birthday, their anniversary, or Zuko’s “Just Because I Love You” appreciation days, but the crippling pain she feels does not allow her to feel hunger, just sorrow.

She issues a single command, tired of watching them scrub the same spot over and over again. It’ll never come out. “Burn it.” And the words come out so eerily calm, no one asks if she’s sure and just strips the sheets to be discarded in the pyre.

The pyre, Katara knows, is reserved for funerals. Ceremoniously, Fire Nation citizens of high importance were always cremated as a way of returning them back to the Sun God, Agni.

She thinks it’s fitting and tells herself that’s why this happened – heaven couldn’t wait.

When Zuko arrives back at the palace, he instantly feels like something is off. The usually lively environment appears to be at a standstill and his wife who always greets him when he returns is not there.

“Where’s Katara? I have something to show her.”

His attendant, Shu, stares off into the distance unable to look him in the eye, knowing why he was absent but also understanding the agony Katara is in.

“Is everything alright? Is the baby okay?”

Shu shakes his head solemnly.

“Lady Katara has suffered a miscarriage, My Lord, and she did not want us to inform you, knowing how important this trip was.”

In a matter of seconds, Zuko is sprinting through the palace to their chambers, barely acknowledging the staff and guards that are greeting him.

He’d talk to them later, although he was sure they knew the reason behind his urgency and thus, not offended.

Their room is dark with the curtains drawn and save for one tiny candle in the corner illuminating her shadow where she’s sitting straight up, arms folded in her like lap like a statue, none of the other lights are lit.

“Katara…” He breathes out.

She doesn’t even look at him as he goes to sit next to her.

“I lost the baby.”

He reaches out to grab her hands, enclosing them in his. “No, you did not. That was _not_ your fault.”

“I’m a healer. I should’ve known something was wrong.” She spits out bitterly and his heart breaks.

Of course. Of course, she was blaming herself.

Of course, she heard the ridiculous rumors about them, about her.

Zuko was already leaving his mark as Fire Lord, moving the country in the right direction and Katara was well-liked.

But one reign, one term, could not undo a century’s worth of oppression, prejudice, and hatred. That, as much he wishes he could make it disappear, would take time.

He was hurt as a father, mourning the child he never got to meet, but it pained him as a husband to see his wife so devastated and know she suffered _alone_ because his job took him away from his family.

“There’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent that.”

“I can help deliver other women’s children. I can nurse their child back to health when they fall ill, and their mothers have no idea what to do. But I couldn’t save my own. My body wouldn’t let me. I have the gift of bloodbending that has plugged wounds and kept critical injuries from becoming fatal and yet, I was so frozen with fear, I didn’t stop the bleeding. I just sat there and watched, Zuko. I watched our baby die.”

He swallows. There is so much he wants to say but none of it feels right so he just sits by her, squeezing her hand, and lets her get this out because he knows Katara more than he knows himself, so he knows that she has not expressed these feelings with anyone else.

“Emi was so excited. What am I supposed to tell her?” She sucks in a deep breath and tears start falling. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can give you everything you want, except a baby brother or sister.”

Zuko pulls her into his lap, and she fights him, telling him to let her go and leave her alone, punctuating her words with her hands and trying to physically push him away, but he doesn’t. He holds onto her so tightly, that eventually, she stops thrashing.

“I’m sorry, Katara.”

And in the comfort and safety of her husband’s arms, something inside of her snaps and she screams and cries until her throat feels raw, and even then, she doesn’t stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me for this pain :(  
> I listened to This Woman's Work by Kate Bush and Heaven by Beyonce while writing this and I should NOT have done that.


End file.
